Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

Bull Run, Virginia, winter 1862-63. "Ruins of railroad bridge at Blackburn's Ford." From photographs of the main Eastern theater of the war, Second Battle of Bull Run (Battle of Second Manassas). Wet plate glass negative. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "U.S. Public Health Service." On the left we have Abe Lincoln, who "kept himself fit by working in the open air." By the time we get to the right side of the exhibit, there's a diagram with a caption about "the youth who achieves self-control." Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.